


Accidental Synchronicity

by CrackingLamb



Series: Bits and Pieces From the Soldier, Spectre, Savior Universe [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Biotics (Mass Effect), Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Conversations, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, POV Alternating, Swearing, Trust Issues, if you're reading this anywhere other than ao3 it's been stolen, please report it thanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 16,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: On the surface they're nothing alike.  But underneath, they share too many similarities to ignore.  They weren't looking for it, especially not while facing a Suicide Mission.  But the pull might be more than they can deny.NSFW chapters are marked for your convenience.
Relationships: Jack | Subject Zero/Thane Krios, background Shepard/Garrus
Series: Bits and Pieces From the Soldier, Spectre, Savior Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610674
Comments: 149
Kudos: 36





	1. In the Beginning, They Were Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome to my completely accidental ship!
> 
> An offhand bit of dialogue gave me ideas about what kind of dynamic would exist between Jack and Thane. It grew like a weed. It ended up becoming one of my favorite bits from my Whumptober Collection. It demanded its own fic.
> 
> So here it is. These will be short, vignette style chapters, starting with ME2 and going all the way to the end of ME3 (and a wee bit beyond).

The first time she visited, Thane never heard her enter the Life Support Plant, other than to hear the door cycle open and closed. She was a shadow against the wall, her feet sure but silent. He smelled her first. Sweat, anger, fear that she desperately tried to hide, ozone and gun oil. He stayed in his seat overlooking the engine core and waited. Waited to see what she was made of.

“I heard about you, ya know? Back in places. Omega, shithole dives where the drugs were cheap and the intel wasn't. Places where assassin was a _fancy_ word.” Jack postured in front of the display cases where he'd stored his weapons, backlit. He turned his head enough to see her in his periphery. Her lips were so dark that he could see the sneer even with her face in shadow. He didn't reply, still waiting to see what she was going to do. He'd heard plenty from the others about her. Dangerous, angry, unhinged. _Broken_.

She stepped further into the light, closer to his personal space while leaving herself carefully positioned to either defend herself or run. He knew the stance well, had seen it in many of his victims over the years. From what he could tell in this mere moment of observation, she didn't strike him as the kind who ran.

“I hear Jacob doesn't like you much,” she went on. “'Assassin is just a precise mercenary', right?” She scoffed, a rough sound from such a delicate mouth. “Like he knows shit about the way the world works or something. Like he isn't just a hired thug himself.”

She took another step closer, her hands fisted at her sides. The lights of the Life Support Plant gleamed off the buckles of the strategically placed straps she wore in lieu of a shirt, flashing like another set of eyes. “You don't mingle much. Like me.”

He turned then, faced her squarely. She was good, he'd admit it. He couldn't tell what she was thinking with her expression so tightly buttoned down like that. She didn't seem unhinged to him. But broken...ah yes, _that_ she was. Pain radiated off her like the ozone scent of her biotics.

“We are not here to make friends, are we?” he said softly.

“Got that damn right,” she agreed vehemently. He supposed it was an opportune time to interject that she was nevertheless here, in his space. He smiled instead. She sneered in return. She did it often, he could tell from the ease with which her facial muscles formed the expression. “The lone gunman thing...it works for you then?”

“It is the shape in which I was formed.”

“Philosophical bullshit or do you really buy that?”

He tilted his head. There was an undercurrent to her question. Did one's experiences mold them into a static form, or was there room for change? “Drell minds are literal. I am what you see today because that is the tool the hanar required me to be.”

“Seems like slavery to me, signing over your soul to the jellies just because they rescued you from certain death.” The sneer seemed to be glued in place.

“To many, yes, it would seem that way. But they are not careless with their tools, and I have not been in their service for many years.”

“So you get off on the killing, is that it?”

He stood then, a test to see how she'd react. Thane wasn't very tall – in fact, he stood barely higher than the Commander – but he was taller than Jack. He didn't loom over her in any way, but her head tilted back to stay focused on his eyes. “No, Jack. I am just a tool made for killing. It is not who I am or what I prefer.”

“And what would you prefer?” she taunted, switching from contempt to carnal in a heartbeat. The lines of her body turned fluid and her breathing changed. But it seemed too practiced to be genuine. Odd, then, that his heart seemed to skip and his breath caught in the back of his throat. The first tendril of arousal pulsed in his facial ridges. Other races didn't attract him. Why did she?

“I prefer quiet,” he said after a moment's thought. He stepped away from her, went back to his seat. As he suspected she would, she didn't leave. He went back to his meditation, aware always that she had slid to the floor beneath his display cases, watching him.

Eventually, with a sound of disgust aimed either at him or herself, she left.


	2. You Know I'm Not Interested, Right?

The next time she went to Life Support, she didn't know why she was doing it. He pissed her off. How did he get to be the perfect killing machine and she was a monster fit for only the worst the galaxy could throw at her? How did he remain so calm in such a fucked up universe? Why did she even care?

He still was sitting at that stupid table, his hands clasped as if in prayer. She slid down to a crouch under the display cases and watched him. She noted that he had heard her enter, but he hadn't deigned to look up.

“Hey,” she said, sharp and loud in the quiet room.

His head turned towards her, his black eyes swallowing whatever emotion she might have been able to read in them otherwise. “Hello, Jack.”

“How come you never come into the mess?”

“And you do?” he asked softly, almost gently.

“Nah, not if I can help it. But ya know, I get hungry.”

“You're a biotic. Of course you get hungry.”

“You're biotic too, aren't you? You must be ravenous.”

His hands fell away from each other, his prayers evidently done since she'd interrupted him. He turned in his chair to face her. His clothes pulled tight against his body, the leather shifting with a sibilance just barely audible. The close fit outlined his form in a way that didn't leave anything to the imagination, not that she knew anything about _that_. When he spoke, she found herself having to focus on his face. When had she stopped?

“The Commander has ordered specialty stock for me. Drell are...”

Jack smirked, covering her weird reaction with her favorite tool, scorn. “You're reptilian. You eat bugs. You think I don't know that?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about my species, Jack.” He spoke lightly, but she could feel the weight of his gaze on her and it made her twitchy. Like he could see right through her bullshit. “Not many humans do.”

“I like knowing who I'm dealing with, okay?” She knew she was getting defensive and tried to calm herself.

“Hmm,” he replied, turning away again. She got off the floor and circled around the table to the opposite side, squarely in his view. Fuck the idea of trying to de-escalate this. If he wanted to look somewhere else, he'd have to be obvious about it. She wondered how hard she could push that button.

“Think you can outshoot bird-boy?”

Thane looked at her, his face giving nothing away. Or maybe she just couldn't read it because he was so damned alien. “Officer Vakarian is a well respected member of this crew, Jack. I am not interested in pitting myself against his skill for a show of dominance.”

She laughed, she couldn't help it. There were layers there, deliberate or not. “No competition, eh?” she asked between chortles. “Bet that makes Shepard sleep better too.”

The look he gave her now was...severe. “The Commander's choices outside of her command are her own. They are not ours to speculate upon.”

“Oh, I know she's fucking him. The cheerleader recorded them in the hangar bay.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Shepard gave me access to all the data on this ship. I watched it, of course.”

He looked away from her. Score! In fact, he stood up and turned his back on her, a silent rebuke that actually stung once she felt it. Now she was fuming. Who did he think he was anyway? The moral police or something?

“Jack.” When did he turn around?

“What?” she snapped.

“Be careful. Upsetting the balance here will cost you much more than just your skin.”

She fixed an easy grin on her lips, ignoring how ashen it felt with a studiously careless shrug. “Ask anyone. My skin's pretty worthless, Thane. Unless you count the ink.”

He stepped closer to her and she suddenly felt like a target caught in his crosshairs. “No one is worthless.”

His hand ghosted along her arm, never quite touching, although each and every tiny hair stood on end as if reaching for him. _Just static_ , she sneered to herself. _Biotic to biotic_.

“I should go,” she said, and try as she might, it didn't come out anywhere near as harsh as she'd planned. She barely recognized that she sounded just like Shepard. She was nowhere near ready to analyze that.

“As you wish,” he said, stepping out of her way to clear her path to the door. She took it, never looking back. He didn't need to know how much he'd just unsettled her.


	3. Easier Said Than Done

She burst into his room again, midway through the night cycle of the ship. The room was darker than normal, lit dimly by the display cases. He had been sleeping lightly, trying to ignore the constant feeling that he was drowning in his own skin. He heard her footsteps stop suddenly as if she realized it was the middle of the night only then.

“Jack,” he said, sitting up on his cot to see her standing in the center of the room. Her posture screamed that she was unsure of why she was there, or what she was doing. But her face – what little of it he could see – was firm and determined.

“Kepral's is gonna kill you, isn't it?”

“Eventually.”

“How are you so calm about it?”

“There is nothing else I can do about it. I have made my peace with it.”

“Just like that?” she sneered and snapped her fingers. “Bullshit.”

He tilted his head at her, changing the angle for his eyes to see her better. There was a violent energy surrounding Jack at all times. Equal parts frustration, pain and biotic overflow. It radiated from her no less than her heat signature when he blinked to shift spectrum into the infrared.

She was not a whole person, not as the drell quantified such matters. He could see it from every line of her vibrant tattoos to her shaved head and flagrantly suggestive clothing. She wore her ebullience like armor. Wrath was her shield against the world. He understood why, of course. It didn't take a genius to see how hard she'd been used and abused. She was a damaged thing, a bird with no wings, a hunter with no eyes. And even with all of her outer hard shell to protect herself, he could see through it, see the scared young woman under the ink and disdain. Trust didn't come easy to her; she'd always had it shattered. He couldn't exactly pinpoint why it was important that she trust him, but it was.

“I've made my peace with death,” he repeated in the dark, knowing it was a lie now. She settled into her usual spot, covered over with shadows deeper still than during the day cycle. She was a blot of darkness on darkness, small and easily overlooked. She would have made a good assassin.

“How?” she asked, her voice plaintive and raw without its scaffold of anger. Her question gave him a reason to convince himself that he _had_ made his peace.

“The goals I set for myself have been reached. The light I have tried to bring to the universe is small, but mine. I have done all that I set out to do.”

“What, no wife, no family to think about having?” The sneer was back, he was sure of it. He could hear it in her voice, clear as a ringing bell.

He smiled gently. Somehow it was easier to say in the dark. “I had a family once.”

“You did?” Surprise. Fascination. He could just about taste it in the air.

“I did. A wife and a son.”

“What happened?”

Memories pushed against his tongue, but he did not voice them. He did not need to relive them in the dark, to spill them like blood into the space between them. He blinked them back, held them close and breathed deeply until he could speak again without them tumbling out. In the shadows she had moved, close enough that he could see the outline of her face in the faint light of the display cases.

“That's why you went rogue, isn't it?” she whispered. He realized he must have made a sound of some kind, something hard and painful like clearing grit from his throat.

“I was released from my duty to the hanar,” he countered when he was able.

“And took your vengeance. Was it sweet?”

He didn't want to relive those moments that battered against his eyes. He blocked them out, focusing on the woman who was starting to turn him upside down with her desire to be known compounded with her desire to hate everything. “Go back to your spot in Engineering, Jack.”

She stood and sauntered over to him, so near he could detect oil and metal from her preferred lair mixing on her skin with her natural ozone scent. “Maybe I want to stay,” she whispered, her voice laced with a sultry tone that was both beguiling and knowingly false.

“No, you don't.”

“Fuck you, you don't know what I want,” she snapped abruptly. Thane leaned back to see her face and simply looked at her, waiting it out. Several looks passed over her mobile features, still so shadowed he could just barely make out eyes and lips and the shape of her nose. He could see her features moving, but couldn't tell what she was expressing. With a sound of disgust she turned on her heel and left him there.

For a flashing instant, he wished she had stayed. But he knew it would not be productive. Whatever she wanted to purge, he couldn't help her with it. But he found that after she'd gone, he could not sleep.


	4. It's Become a...Thing

Fuck it.

She didn't know how it happened, but she wanted to see him come undone. She wanted to see him lose control, throw her back against a wall, across that damned table he spent so much time meditating at. Drag her down into an abyss of sensation so she could get it out of her fucking system.

But he wouldn't play along. She'd tried enticing him, she'd tried bullying. His equanimity was perfectly unbreakable. His dark eyes looked through her, as if he could see her soul, the small frightened thing she kept so well hidden from everyone else and never seemed to hide from him.

She stormed into the Life Support Plant and paced back and forth, nervous energy making her burn up, making her glow. He just watched, silent and calm as ever.

“Can't get under your skin, can I?” she spat, covering her nerves with derision like she always did. It was second nature now.

He leaned back in his chair, his strangely conjoined fingers still clasped around each other. She wanted to hit something. His dark eyes blinked at her and she snapped. Her fist curled before she knew what she was doing and she was swinging at him and her knuckles were blue and sparking and...

Her back hit the wall before she fully comprehended what had happened, fully ten feet away from his table. His hand was cradling hers, the faint outline of blue fading from his body as he dropped the barrier he'd put up before she hit him. The edge of the bulkhead dug into her bare back, reminding her that she was still human and could feel pain.

Fuck he was strong, and faster than anything she'd ever seen. An uncomfortable thrill went down her spine to settle in her gut. He held her gently but firmly. She couldn't break his grasp even though she struggled. His face was implacable and just inches from hers. Deep in his eyes she could barely make out the shape of his irises and pupils. She could feel the leather of his outfit against her skin, warm and smooth. In contrast his skin was almost abrasive, and scaled like some kind of reptile. _Sinuous_ , her mind supplied before it went blank as she registered something else. His breathing was calm, his face the very model of patient compassion, but he was hard as a rock against her.

She smirked at him to hide the rush of aroused adrenaline coursing through her. “So I _have_ gotten under your skin.”

He released her and stepped away, turned away so she couldn't see the shape of his erection through his snug pants. She stayed where she was against the wall. She felt cold without him holding her there now. She hated that.

“Talk to me,” she demanded.

“You don't want to talk, Jack. What you want is to hurt yourself. I will not be the tool you use for it.”

“Fuck you!”

His head turned just enough so that she could see the edges of his facial ridges flush with color, deepening the pink to red. Anger? Lust? She didn't know. Didn't care either. The rejection fucking sucked either way. She slammed her palms against the wall to shove herself off it and stormed out of the room.


	5. Reckless Endangerment Is How She Likes It

He watched her eyes open in the Medbay as she came back from the brink of death for what he'd learned was not the first time. The Commander had just left, her face a mask of worry and guilt and something else, something not related to Jack being in the Medbay. He didn't know where they'd been together, but could piece it together well enough. Jack's wounds were numerous along her arms and torso, marring her tattoos. There was a burn mark along the length of her forearm that matched no pattern of fire he'd ever seen. It had to be acid.

She was watching him look her over. Her face was remarkably smooth and expressionless. “It was a thresher maw.”

“Why were you fighting a thresher maw without armor, Jack?”

There was the sneer he was so used to. “Fuck, I didn't know that's what Wrex was gonna throw at us.”

“You were on Tuchanka?” he let slip, surprise coloring his voice more than he'd intended. What under the sun had Shepard been doing on the surface? He knew they were in the krogan home system, but he hadn't thought any of the crew had gone down to the planet. It was a harsh, unforgiving landscape made worse by the remnants of old radiation. It was hazardous for _any_ of them to go down there, not least of all a waifish human with more rashness than was good for her. He should have realized there was more to this side trip than tracking the Professor's missing comrade.

“Rite of passage for her tank baby.” Jack let her eyes sag shut again, a measure of trust that he didn't think she knew she was giving him. “Now he's _Urdnot_ Grunt.”

He let that pass with only a small smile. Jack had taken a liking to the tank born krogan. He could understand why – they were very alike, orphans after a fashion, wild and angry and violent. Tempered by the Commander in ways they didn't see, although Thane did.

“You need better armor, Jack.”

She snorted, but softly. He felt himself smiling wider. Her hand flailed out blindly and he took it in his own. Her fingers wrapped around his and squeezed. “Maybe.”

“I will let you rest.”

He tried to withdraw his hand from hers, but she held tight. “Stay?”

He planted his feet more solidly. He looked up and saw Dr. Chakwas watching them, awe and understanding mingled on her face. He wondered just how terrible a patient Jack had been for the good doctor. She nodded silently and Thane returned it. “All right.”


	6. Break the Seal

She put on the leather vest Shepard gave her after Pragia and tried to see her reflection in the glass overlooking the engine core in Engineering. But it was too blurry. She took a deep breath of controlled resolve and left the lower deck to head upstairs for the Life Support Plant. Thane would tell her what he thought of it without any bullshit. She entered his room unannounced like she usually did and opened her mouth to speak but stopped upon seeing him.

He was stretched out across the floor. It looked like he was doing one-handed push ups. His feet were braced against the legs of the table, one arm behind his back, the other holding up his entire weight. He was showing off entirely too much skin.

 _Because he's completely naked_ , her brain supplied.

She saw his clothes neatly folded on the table. She couldn't look away from the way his skin moved over his muscles. He wasn't bulky like some men she had known in her short life, but sleek and compact. Lean. His thighs bunched with effort as he lowered his center of mass on one arm, the effort obvious in his biceps, shoulders and back. He raised himself back up and switched arms, his eyes never meeting hers although he had to know she was there.

She slid down the wall under his display cases, her favorite spot in his room. From there she could see the length of his body as he pushed himself. He wasn't sweating but he was starting to struggle for air.

“It's impressive and all, but you should probably stop before you pass out from asphyxiation.”

He raised himself a final time, then let his knees drop and sat back on his heels. _Fuck me upside down and sideways_ , she thought. His chest was just as lean as the rest of him, covered in the pale green scales like his hands and face, striped around his sides with darker swathes. Along the edges of his ribs and under his arms he had the same pink as his facial ridges. His waist was tapered and narrow, leading her eye unerringly between his legs to where his sex hung. He gazed at her without shame or guile.

“I am not dead yet,” he said softly between panting breaths. He tipped his head to the side, really seeing her for the first time. “You have a new outfit on.”

“Yeah...”

He smiled, his lips parting in a way that made her think _hungry_. “I like it.”

“I just...I...” Her brain completely stuttered looking at him like that. How was a _lizard_ so fucking gorgeous? When did she even start thinking that? “I wanted your opinion.”

“And now you have it.”

He stood up and turned his back to her, walking to the table to dress again. She stared at his ass, seeing how the muscles were defined under his skin, shifting with each movement. He always seemed so still. But he was jumping like...like she didn't even know what. She couldn't think.

 _The fuck is wrong with you_ , she snarled to herself. He was hardly her first naked person. Why was she reacting so strongly?

She must have blanked out for a minute, because the next thing she saw was his hand offered to help her to her feet. She took it and let him draw her up, neither making any effort to withdraw from the other's personal space. His expression was smooth and closed off, but his hand was still drawing up and down her forearm, his weird fused fingers brushing against her pulse. She could feel it kick against his touch. He smiled, transforming his face from cold and closed to warm and...friendly.

“What's the matter, Jack?” he asked, the smile dropping away with whatever he saw on her face.

“N-nothing.”

“Do not hide behind lies now.”

She leaned in, swift and precise, and let her mouth cover his. She waited for him to push her away. But he didn't.

His hands gripped her upper arms tight, almost painfully. Shit, he was so strong! His mouth moved against hers, his lips molding to hers, his tongue slipping between her teeth. She wanted to strip him down again, feel his skin on her own, feel him inside her. But she was frozen to the spot, overwhelmed by the spices on his breath, the heat of his tongue, the pressure of his hands. She heard a choked off sound and realized it came from her own throat.

He pulled away, his eyes blinking furiously. His hands dropped away from her arms, flexing as if he hadn't realized how hard he'd been holding her until his fingers hurt. She rubbed her arms where his hands had been, knowing there would be bruises later. Her mouth tingled and suddenly the lights were too bright and she couldn't think of a single snarky thing to say.

“Well, here we are,” he said. He must have seen the stricken look she could feel in her bones, because his hand cupped her shaved head, rubbing against the stubble of her hair before drawing her into an embrace. She was half tempted to cry and she didn't know why. Instead, she let him hold her and let her arms go around him, feeling him solid and real against her. It felt almost obscenely good to be held so close, so tight.

She tried to take a deep breath and found it sounded ragged to her ears, almost like a sob. He held her tighter still. She burrowed against his neck, surrounded by spice and leather and the particular ozone static of biotics. Inexplicably, her racing heart slowed, became calm and steady. There was something soothing about his touch. She felt...protected. Her eyes began to burn.

“Thane...”

“Shh. Stay in the moment, Jack. No more than this moment.”

She closed her eyes and allowed the tears to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last update until after the New Year. Happy holidays to one and all!


	7. The Kind of Trust That Gets You Killed

He had never come to care for another species before. He wasn't sure of himself, of what his next move should be. If there should _be_ a next move. She was a puzzle with many pieces, some too worn down and faded that he wasn't sure where they were supposed to fit. Some were so sharp they could cut deeper than any blade. And it wasn't fair to ask anything of her in terms of...commitment. He was dying. They both knew it.

She was waiting for him in the Life Support Plant after every mission the Commander took him on now. That had started just after he'd returned from saving Kolyat from himself. Sometimes she was sitting in her spot under the display cases, sometimes she was staring out at the expanse of the engine core. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they just sat in silence, their bodies barely touching as she sat on top of his table with her legs hanging down next to him as he meditated or prayed. They often ate together now, her scarfing down her food as if it would disappear, he more sedately. They each entertained the other with their small idiosyncrasies. They had not kissed again, and she no longer used blatant and false attempts to seduce him. Strangely, he felt his attraction to her grow because of it. Because her behavior now was _real_.

Today, she was sitting at the table, a razor, a brush, a bar of soap and a bowl of steaming water in front of her. A towel was bunched in her hands, gripped tight enough that he could see white beneath the tattoos on her knuckles.

“Do you need something?” he asked, the way he always did now. It was automatic, a reflex. It was very obvious she wanted him to do something for her, or at least be a witness to it. But he was caught so off guard nothing else came to mind.

She took a deep breath, as if preparing herself for something difficult. Like she expected rejection. “I want to shave my head again. It's getting itchy. But I don't have a mirror down in Engineering.”

“So you want me to do it?” He crossed the length of the room to stand in front of her for a change. “You would trust me with that?”

He pointedly ran his hand over the ridges on his head and she tossed him a casual grin that looked and felt more authentic than he'd ever seen on her before. “Yeah, I trust you with it.”

He regarded her silently, comprehending what this meant to her. _For_ her. She began to fidget under his stare and looked like she was going to change her mind and flee. He put his hand over hers before she could jump up from the seat. “You will have to tell me how to do it.”

She settled back, visibly relaxing. “I can do that,” she whispered.

She showed him the edge of the razor blade, how to hold it in his hand, how to lather the soap in her short hair, how to make the suds larger with the brush shaped like a fatter, blunter version used for painting. She told him to let the blade do the work, that he just needed to guide it across the curve of her scalp. He wet his hands and took the soap from her, working up a thin film of slippery bubbles with the brush, moving it in circles around her scalp. She sat perfectly still, hardly breathing. Her shoulders were tense, even though she'd asked this of him. The first pass he made with the razor made her shudder.

“Shit...” he barely heard her breathe out.

“Are you all right?” he asked, moving slightly to get better light. And a better look at her to gauge her expression.

“Yeah...I'm fine.”

“Then relax. I will not cut you.”

She made an effort and sat more comfortably. He made another pass with the razor and watched her eyes close. For long minutes the only sound in the room was the scrape of the blade on her hair, the swish of water as he rinsed it and the slip of soapy brush. He took his time, both in caution and to prolong the silence and comfort. For he knew full well this was an offer – and acceptance – of comfort. She was deliberately letting down her guard. It was an unspeakable leap for her.

She was nearly asleep by the time he was finished and he suppressed a smile. He took the towel from her hands, startling her from her deeply relaxed state and wiped off the excess soap and the leftover bits of hair that clung to the back of her neck.

“How does it feel?” he asked, stepping back around the table to see her face. She ran her hand over it, trying to find any spots he'd missed.

“It's good. Damn good.” Her eyes met his, the deep brown sparkling under the lights. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

She stood up to leave, piling all the tools into the towel to be cleaned. He made a decision in the split second before she could move out of his reach. His arm snagged around her waist and she curved into him, her feet clumsy but her touch sure where her hands landed on him. He leaned in slowly, giving her time to back away if she wanted. Her eyes lit up before they slid shut and her arms twined around his neck.

It was a gentle, undemanding kiss. On someone else he would have called it sweet. On her it was...piquant. With a sigh she pulled away, a flush of color on her cheeks as she gathered up her things. There were no more words between them and the room felt much colder without her once the door slid shut.


	8. Puzzling, But Good

Alone and alive had been her motto for longer than she could remember. It worked for her, kept her out of emotional entanglements. Shepard thought it was cowardly. Oh, the Commander wouldn't come right out and say it, but it was in her eyes. Easy for her to say, she had Garrus to turn to. Those two were a match made in someone's version of heaven. Or maybe hell. Jack was secretly delighted by the thought of the Commander and her vigilante boyfriend utterly destroying Cerberus once the mission was done. She'd gladly lend a hand for that one.

Anyway...

Thane had gotten under her skin. What started out as a way to vent and antagonize had become something...else. She enjoyed his quiet company, and he didn't seem put off by hers. He didn't pounce on her like other men. Hadn't made her feel cornered or threatened, even when she got in his face and called him names. He didn't react to any false advertising, didn't take up her blatant offers for mindless sex.

But he'd kissed her back. And he'd initiated another. She still didn't quite know what to do with that.

It had become such a habit to go to him in Life Support, almost a crutch. But she didn't stop herself. She liked the peace of it. Even when she stormed into his privacy like a maelstrom of emotion and anger and frustration. Even though he often ate bugs out of a bowl with a pair of chopsticks. Being there was different than anywhere else on the ship. It was spartan and clean, warm without being suffocating. Bright without being garish. Comfortably silent.

He wasn't at his table the next time she entered. Nor was he laying down on the narrow cot. He wasn't there at all. A datapad lay forgotten next to his seat, along with a half eaten bowl of something like noodles. _No bugs today_ , she smirked to herself.

She was tempted to hack the pad, but something stopped her. A few times now he'd talked about his son. Had shown her what his memories did to him. _Solipsism_. She couldn't imagine being that way, never forgetting a thing. There were too many reminders as it was. And as much as she taunted about having access to everything the ship had in terms of surveillance and data, she respected his privacy more than that. She respected _him_.

What even was this, she wondered. What drew them together? They were two people who could not have been more different from each other if they tried, and yet...

Yet...

They were very alike. Two people who had seen their worlds come crashing down around their ears. She couldn't remember a time before Cerberus. It had shaped her into this being of unbridled rage and power. He had lost his wife, and in doing so had become more of a machine for killing than the jellies had ever done. She didn't know how it had happened, but they fit. Their jagged edges clicked into place with each other, not afraid to remain sharp, trusting they wouldn't cut.

Trust. What a foreign concept to her, she could even admit it. She didn't trust anyone. Not after everything she'd been through. But she knew him well enough now to know he was honorable. He had pride in his work. _The difference between a thug and a professional_ , he'd said. She snorted to herself, remembering that. He was right, even if the subject at hand had been assassination.

She sat on top of his table, resting her elbows on her knees, her feet on his chair. When he came through the door, still carrying with him the stink of some unknown place, he saw her and stopped in his tracks. She didn't know what he was thinking, but it didn't matter. If he wanted her to know, he'd tell her.

“Jack,” he said. His voice ran down her spine like a caress. No one else spoke to her like that.

“Busy day?” she asked, sounding for a moment like some kind of old fashioned housewife. It nearly made her laugh. Or bolt.

He smiled sideways, just a quirk of his lips. He came to her at the table, moving the chair out of the way to stand between her bent legs. Her arms naturally slipped around his neck, comforting instead of carnal. His kissed her forehead before resting his brow there. They spent more time touching now, affirming that the other was there, was real.

“It was,” he said. “Now it's better.”


	9. Targets On Our Backs

The Kodiak was very full, and gave him the excuse he didn't really need, but chose to take, to stand close to her. Every turn and rattle brought their bodies into contact, sizzling with sparks. He looked over to where the Commander balanced with Garrus, a similar stance between them. Shepard caught his eye and something danced in hers, although she didn't break out into a smile. They had talked, he and the Commander. Talked about connections and memories and the need for support from each other. Her gaze passed over Jack too, and it softened with something like pride mixed with relief.

“Where are we going again?” Jack asked aloud, twisting to look over her shoulder at Shepard.

“Old Cerberus facility. It's empty now, but there are still mechs in place and lots of twists and turns. Good place to run some combat simulations.”

Thane saw something unspoken but sharp pass between the Commander and Miranda. There was a layer here that no one was reading, except perhaps Garrus, who seemed to be frowning.

“You sure about this?” Thane heard the turian whisper.

“Absolutely,” Shepard replied firmly, brooking no argument. Miranda said nothing.

The facility turned out to have already been attacked once, if the condition of it said anything. But Thane could not disagree about its usefulness as a training location. The whole group of them – all of Shepard's handpicked ground team members – stood in what appeared to be a hangar bay, awaiting orders.

“You'll pair off,” she told them. “I'll switch you up a couple times, see how well you work with each other. The object is to take down the most mechs in each round. I need to see how efficient you all are.”

“And where will you be?” Miranda finally spoke up, her voice clipped and cold.

“I'll be observing from your old office,” Shepard replied, saccharine sweet. Then she left them, with a final instruction to patch into her comms on a specific frequency.

“Holy shit,” Jack whispered to him. “This is the Lazarus station.” He glanced down at her, confused. “This is where they rebuilt Shepard, brought her back to life.”

“How do you know that?” he whispered back to her. She turned her face up to him, a hint of her old belligerence hiding in the depths of her eyes.

“Where else could it be? Miranda's old office? She was the head of the project.” Jack cracked a smile. “That's some cold shit right there. Making Miranda train in the facility she used to rebuild Shepard?”

“It is a perverse kind of catharsis, I suppose.”

“Got that fucking right.” She chortled. “I love it.”

There was no time left to chat, as they began their simulations. The Commander had paired them off together and they moved fluidly through the tangle of hallways and oddly placed rooms, taking down mechs between them with ease. They were coming down to the end of their third round – so far the Commander hadn't switched them to another member of the team – when a sudden klaxon rang out, causing all of them to stop.

“Back to the shuttle,” Shepard's voice boomed out over the PA. “Trouble back home.”

Once they were on their way to the ship, Miranda asked softly, “What's happened?”

“Collectors. On the Normandy.”

“Did they...?” Miranda left the question off on a trail, and Shepard's face hardened.

“I'm going to get my crew _back_ ,” she spat, her words like daggers.

Jack stepped closer to him, even went so far as to dig her fingers into his arm where no one could see. She'd faced the Collectors, he recalled, before he'd been recruited to the squad. A human colony called Horizon, he remembered. She hadn't talked about it much, other than to scathingly deride someone named Williams, who had apparently known the Commander before her death. He wondered if Jack's current reaction was fear or excitement. He maneuvered himself to catch a glimpse of her face. It was neither.

Her eyes held only anger tempered with something like stoicism.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I'm fine. I'm ready to send those fuckers into a black hole.” She met his eyes, her face crumpled in a frown. “You know I don't give a shit about most people, but the Commander...”

“She's important to all of us.”

“Yeah. And her crew is important to her. She's gonna want to get them back. And we'll all be along for the ride. This is it, Thane. This is why we're all here, training in the first place.”

He thought about that and decided Jack was right. Looking at Shepard as they went back to the Normandy he could see her going over plans with Garrus on one side and Miranda on the other. They made an odd trio, but the uniting force of vengeance was palpable between them. If this was it, there were things he needed to do to prepare.

He ran his hand up and down Jack's arm and heard her gulping swallow. She leaned against him, resting her temple on his chest. The flight felt too long and yet not long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...the trouble with writing something like this that's short and progresses quickly through the story of the games is that now this fic is ahead of my main fic in terms of plot. Which also means...in the chapters ahead there be spoilers. *sigh* My punishment for not being patient, I guess.
> 
> Let me know, dear readers, if you are at all concerned with knowing how my main fic ends before it happens (assuming you're reading that too) or if I should make any effort to keep it as spoiler free as possible? I suppose there is the aspect of 'we all know how it ends, we've played it' to consider, so maybe I'm overthinking it entirely.
> 
> Let me know, drop me a line.


	10. I'd Do Anything to Make You Stay

It was too quiet in the belly of the ship. No banter drifting down from Engineering between Daniels and Donnelly. No voices coming through the vents and lines. Jack should have been soothed by the silence, but it was oddly oppressive. Somehow these people had become a part of her, somehow she'd begun to care about them against her better judgment. She didn't like it one bit. Emotional attachments made you sloppy. Sloppy got you killed. She knew this was supposed to be a suicide mission, but that didn't mean she intended to go down easy. Even Thane had said the Commander had made a name for herself by proving people wrong. Jack didn't expect this to be any different.

She heard the door cycle open above and tensed, wondering if Shepard was going to make one last round of chats before they went after the missing crew. She used to hate how the Commander would intrude, but she found that she missed it when it didn't happen. She waited to see the polished boots and crisp uniform but...

“Thane,” she said in surprise. “What are you doing down here?”

He seemed unsure of himself suddenly, and it was strange. He was always sure, always poised. Even when she battered him with her bullshit. He stood in the center of her chosen spot and looked around. Her messy cot, the pile of datapads still everywhere. The red light, the deep shadows. Her, sitting cross-legged on the table, scrunched up as compact as she could make herself. He focused on her then, his hands clasped behind his back, his feet together. He looked like he was standing at attention when he did that, but she had learned it was just long habit of keeping himself still.

“Jack...I've been...thinking.”

She uncurled herself, moving to the edge of the table so she could see him better and he could know that he had her full attention. “What about?”

“I have known I was going to die for many years. I have righted many wrongs, asked for forgiveness from my deities. I had made my peace. And then you...” He stopped, turning his face away as if he couldn't bear to look at her.

She got off the table and went to him, no slink or purposeful seduction in her walk, none of her usual churlish behavior designed to cover over what she felt with a layer of disdain for the universe. They were too far beyond that, now. “Thane...?”

He turned back to her and she was startled to find tears standing on his eyelids. She hadn't even known drell could cry. “You stormed into my world, my space. You woke me from my long sleep. I wanted to push you away. I didn't want...didn't...”

She stepped away from him then, tears pricking her own eyes. “You didn't want to fall for the criminal with the filthy mouth and problem with authority, is that it?”

“No, that's not it. Jack...I didn't want to hurt her more than she has been hurt in the past. I am dying. I cannot offer you more than...”

“Shut up, Thane,” she sneered warmly and put her arms around him. “This mission is fucked up from the start. No telling if we'll come back from it. I don't care about your Kepral's right now. Stay with me. We're alive right now. Make it count.”

“Jack,” he breathed, so softly she almost didn't hear it. She tipped back her head to meet his eyes, brimming over with tears. She reached up and brushed them away with her thumb, a bit surprised at her own gentleness. It seemed to break his resolve and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. He leaned down to kiss her, his mouth hard on hers. She let him push her backwards until her legs hit the edge of her table. His spice filled her mouth, made her breathless and lightheaded.

“Is that a yes on the staying?” she asked when they broke away, each heaving for air.

“If you really want me to stay, then yes.”

She hopped up on the table. “Oh yeah, I want you to stay. C'mere.”


	11. **She Is An Anchor, Keeping Me Bound to This Mortal Coil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please note the bump in rating, this chapter is NSFW**

He hadn't expected such easy acquiescence from himself. But she wrapped herself around him, held him close without it being cloying. She cradled his face in her hands, her fingers cool against his facial ridges. He closed his eyes and let the feeling wash through him, imprinting itself on his memory. He wanted it, wanted _her_. He was tired of fighting it. How long had it been since he'd been touched as she was touching him? Mordin's voice wound through his mind before he was too lost in sensation. _Your bodily fluids are different from humans,_ the salarian had told him in his no-nonsense way. _Be aware of side effects in your partner_.

“You all right in there?” she coaxed, her voice both light and wry simultaneously. He smiled briefly, opening his eyes to look at her again. He didn't think he could match her ease with the circumstances.

“I've worked so hard, tried to leave the galaxy better than I found it. Atoned for the evils I've done. Prepared for my death. I...”

“Hey, I wasn't looking for a speech.” She looked sad, but it was turned inward, as if she thought herself selfish for wanting him.

“Jack...I thought I was ready to die. I am...afraid. And it shames me.” He slammed his fist into the table next to her leg. She let go of him to cover his curled hand with her fingers, drawing it up to her mouth and kissing his knuckles.

“Stop,” she begged, her legs bracketing him against her body, tugging him closer even as her hands were gentle on his. “You know I wasn't looking for some dumbshit love affair. They never work out, ya know? I'm not the settling type. I don't want to have someone interfering with my decisions, making me think twice...” She must have felt like she was losing his interest and understanding because she stopped and she cupped his face in her hands. “But you...I _need_ you. I never wanted to need anyone ever again, but I don't like to think about what life would be like on this floating hunk of metal without you. Tomorrow could be the end, for all of us. Right now, we're alive. We gotta make the most of that, 'cuz we both know it could all change in an...”

He didn't let her finish. His mouth pressed against hers, cutting off her words. She laced her arms around his neck. His hands gripped her hips, pulling her closer still until there was no space left between them. Her mouth was sweet, like she'd been eating fruit. He could smell her arousal under the metallic tang of Engineering. Blood rushed to his facial ridges, darkening them. She leaned back from his kiss to trace the lines of them, smiling at him before pushing him away to reach for the buckles of her vest.

He watched her strip, fascinated by the upright peaks of her breasts. The lines of her tattoos broke there, leaving the nipples untouched by ink, drawing his eye like targets. Her body was too lean, too sharply angled, but it appealed in a way he hadn't expected. It matched her soul. She slid off the end of the table to kick off boots and shimmy her pants down her legs, laying herself bare. There were more tattoos on her thighs, knees and calves. Even her feet had small markings that matched the ones on her hands.

“Just gonna look?” she asked. She wasn't shy, wasn't hiding from him. He went back to her and cupped the back of her head to kiss her again, working his way across her jaw and down her neck to where her pulse beat swift against his tongue.

She made a sound, breathy and pleased. She guided him down her body until he was on his knees, her legs parting slightly so he was between them. The scent of her arousal was stronger there and he peered up at her, a grin twisting his lips. Her eyes darkened with desire and she lifted one leg to drop it over his shoulder.

Her sex spread open before him, inviting him to touch and taste. Thane had been around the galaxy a time or two. He knew the mechanics between their species were the same. He slid the back of his conjoined finger along the seam of her, finding it slick and warm. She made a choked sound as the knuckles brushed against her clit, her leg jumping on his shoulder.

“Is that good?”

“Fuck, Thane...”

He stood up, letting her leg drop to the floor, trapping his hand. His turned it over in the wedged space between her thighs, running the pads of his fingers now through the folds of flesh until he found her opening. He leaned into her while simultaneously pressing his conjoined finger inside her. She groaned and the muscles within her clamped down on him. He pressed into her until his palm was flush with her mound, cupping her. He curled his finger and she jerked her whole body, grabbing onto his shoulders to keep herself upright. His finger slid into her easily as she grew slick. He drew back and forth at the edges of her channel, teasing and light.

“You have too many clothes on,” she panted.

He withdrew his hand from her, seeing her watch as he licked himself clean of her fluids before he stripped. He hadn't thought her eyes could dilate any further and he grinned at her. She let out a huff of air that could either be exasperation or excitement. He wasted no time pulling off his clothes, leaving them to pile on the floor of her room. Her eyes trailed down his body, familiar and easy until she reached his erection.

“So you're a grower,” she murmured, reaching out to take him in hand. He didn't quite understand what she meant, but he found he didn't really care, either. Her body had been so warm, but her fingers were cool. She stroked him and he grew harder in her fist, his blood pumping so hard he could feel his own pulse against her palm. “C'mere.”

He loomed over her, letting her drag him close with her legs around his waist, their bodies lining up perfectly with her perched on the table. She hadn't let him go and guided his cock to her core, shifting her hips to take him inside her. Her heat surrounded him and he heard himself groan at the pressure.

She leaned back across the table, her hips tilting at an angle that had to be uncomfortable for her. He lifted her legs at the knees, bracing them against his chest so he could hold onto her hips, driving himself as deep as he could go. She cried out, not in pain, but in satisfaction. She lifted into each thrust, curling her spine to meet him, begging for more. Her hand sneaked between their bodies and he looked down to see her touching herself, rubbing her clit in circles in time to slide of their bodies. He knew it was a sight he would relive in his mind until his dying breath. She began to swear as her body tightened on him, her hand growing erratic on her own body.

“Shit...now, Thane...now!”

He spread her legs wide, his hands under her knees, and pushed until he could no further. Her inner muscles fluttered and spasmed on his cock as she hit her climax, her face relaxed into an expression of bliss as she cried out. Her limbs went slack as the wave crested and he pulled back, thinking he would withdraw from her to chase his finish. Her eyes opened suddenly, the clarity in them stark.

“No,” she begged. “Don't leave me.”

He pushed any thought of Mordin's warnings out of his head and pumped back into her, harder now. She seemed to like it that way. Heat spiraled up his spine, sending electric shocks down his arms, into his facial ridges. With a shout, he came, dropping across her body where she cradled his head in her hands. He rested there on her stomach for a moment, tasting her sweat in the corner of his mouth before he pulled away, pulled her to stand. They didn't speak, but found a comfortable position on her tiny cot, wrapped up in each other in the darkness. And then they slept, snatching a few hours of rest before the end.


	12. Into the Pandemonium, Without Surrender

Somehow they all managed to find their way to the cockpit as Joker brought them back to the Sahrabarik system. The Omega 4 Relay glowed red in the distance, a menacing eye in space. Jack crouched in a corner, still able to see the ports and view screens of their approach to the relay. Thane stood next to her, a solid presence she could lean on. His hand dropped to her shoulder and she took it in her own, uncaring that Shepard glanced at them with knowing eyes from the copilot's seat. Considering the heated awareness between the Commander and Garrus, Jack figured they'd had their own little party in the hours before now.

“Approaching the Omega 4 Relay,” Joker said. “Everyone stand by.”

“Let's make it happen,” the Commander said, as Garrus shifted over to her, his talons on the back of her seat, almost mimicking the stance between herself and Thane.

“Reaper IFF activated. Signal acknowledged,” EDI announced in her calm computer way. Jack tightened her fingers on Thane's, feeling his in response.

They went through the relay.

From then on, it was chaos. The little ship dodged and flipped around the automatic sentries alerted by their presence. She and Thane helped Samara and Miranda keep the barriers up as the Normandy was bombarded with laser fire. The empty seats around her on the crew deck haunted the corners of her eyes and she reaffirmed to herself why they were doing this, why this potentially suicidal mission was critical to the survival of their species. Even if she thought they were fucking idiots for taking it on.

With a lurch that threw her off her feet and slammed her into a bulkhead, the Normandy landed. She picked herself up and dusted herself off and raced to find Thane, emerging from the elevator in the now plundered cargo bay where Shepard herself had been fighting one of those huge bastards up close and personal. The hull breech was sealed with a barrier, but the stars were clearly visible through it.

Thane reached for her, as desperate for contact as she was. They stood with their arms around each other, heedless of anyone watching. “You all right?”

“I am unhurt,” he said. His hands tracked over her arms and back, subtly checking her for injury. She let her forehead rest against his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow under the skin. They both heard Shepard calling them to attention and placed a swift kiss on his collarbone before stepping away from him. Now was not a great time for sentiment. There was work to be done.

“Grab your gear,” Shepard said as she passed them. “Meeting in the conference room.”

“You got it, Commander,” Jack said, feeling fierce. It was time to end this bullshit once and for all. She kept her hand in Thane's as she collected her weapons – his were already strapped to him – and they went back to the elevator with the others.


	13. Suicide Is Painless

“Garrus, you're with me,” Shepard said. “Miranda, you too. You've earned the right to see what you built me for.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Shepard's gaze slid over each and every one of them, tired, wounded, but determined to give her the time she needed to finish this. She and Thane's eyes lingered on each other for a moment, hers almost questioning whether he could go on, his own mostly likely unreadable to her. “The rest of you, stay sharp, stick together and keep them off our asses.”

Jack huffed a laugh next to him, a runnel of blood trickling down her face from a nick in her scalp. “Wouldn't want to mess up the cheerleader's perfect one, now would we?” she muttered.

Shepard ghosted a grin as if she'd heard it before she got back to business. She made sure to make eye contact again with all of them assembled and nodded sharply. “I expect to see each and every one of you back on the ship. That's an order.”

The trio turned and went through the huge sliding doors, unleashing the next round of Collectors on them to distract. The fighting was fierce and constant. Thane closed his mind to the sound, the chaos. He separated his soul from his body, tucked it safe inside his mind, kept the memory of Jack's last sweet breath on his lips hidden and secure.

They fought on.

He didn't measure the minutes, or the heat sinks. The steady barrage was tiring to an already tired body, but he kept going. His sight was growing blurred, but his muscle memory remained intact, firing again and again, taking down monstrosity after monstrosity. Jack was still beside him, pushing herself and her biotics to the threshold of exhaustion, using bursts of submachine gun fire to rest between Throws and Reaves. Sweat poured down her neck.

He turned away from it, slicing off the need to pay attention to her well-being. That would not end well for them. He loaded another heat sink and took the opportunity to Lift several combatants from the front rank between shots.

He heard the buzz of the comms, let someone else answer. He hadn't the breath for it. Jack. Jack answered, and shouted for them to begin to fall back, drawing the Collectors away from Shepard and towards the Normandy, waiting to pick them up. He spared a glance for her, saw the grim determination on her face.

“C'mon, lover, we gotta move,” she ground out between clenched teeth. She took his arm, pulling him along in her wake, half supporting him in her biotic field. He saw the hazy outline of the ship, knew in that moment that they were actually going to make it. Ahead of them, the members of the crew they'd managed to save were already boarding the Normandy, Mordin scanning each one as they passed him.

He collapsed against the bulkhead inside the airlock, absently accepting the water bottle Jack handed him. The Normandy pulled away, staying close to retrieve the Commander, but far enough away that the Collectors could not attack. There was a rumble, soft at first, but growing rapidly in intensity. The plates and platforms of the base began to shake and break apart. A metallic scream ripped through the asteroid station, reverberating and making the whole place vibrate as it began to collapse. Gunfire, shouts. He looked out from his position on the floor and saw Miranda running, Garrus limping behind her but gamely keeping up speed. Where was Shepard?

Jack and Joker traded fire on the Collectors pursuing the final team. Miranda leaped aboard and turned to join them as Garrus limped the last bit of distance to do the same. Thane could see the Commander now, racing the tide of mutated servants of the Reapers, dodging the falling debris and uneven platforms as they disintegrated around her.

Shepard jumped off the last platform even as it dropped out of sight, her arms and legs pinwheeling in midair. Thane saw her eyes widen as sudden fear that she would miss her mark blossomed just before her face disappeared from view. Only her fingertips could be seen, on the edge of the airlock.

“EDI!” Joker shouted. “Move your metal ass!”

“I do not _have_ an ass, Mr. Moreau,” the AI retorted, but nevertheless began a steep incline to move away from the doomed base. Garrus knelt down and pulled Shepard aboard as Miranda hit the controls to close the airlock. The pair collapsed into each other's arms, Garrus burying his face in her hair, the Commander's eyes meeting Thane's, stark and vivid violet. He nodded, spent utterly.

Jack pulled him to his feet, dragging him inside the ship as it accelerated through the debris field, outrunning the blast that was coming. They slumped together in the CIC, letting the others rush to the cockpit to see their escape. The dampeners kicked in, pressing down on them as the Normandy shunted through the relay, the shockwave of the exploding Collector Base on their tail.

Then...all was silence until the familiar stars and orbits of the Sahrabarik system could be seen through the forward ports.

They'd made it. All of them. They'd survived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! This broke 10K words!


	14. **What Do We Do Now?

It was quiet in the ship. They were docked at Omega, and Shepard had taken most of the injured with her to Mordin's old clinic and to talk to Aria T'Loak. Jack wasn't hurt bad enough to need to see anyone about it, so she remained on board. She thought Thane might have stayed too, just resting. He hadn't complained of any breathlessness or weakness as they fought their way through the base, but she knew he'd been fighting to hide the effects of his condition from Shepard and now was paying for it.

She debated with herself on whether or not she should go see him. It wasn't like there was much to say now. They'd fought, fucked and lived. They'd go their own ways now, right?

Somehow she found herself standing outside the Life Support Plant, her feet hesitating to get her close enough to trigger the door's mechanism to open. She took a breath and mentally shook herself. She stepped forward but the doors didn't open. He'd locked them. She accessed her omni-tool and pinged him. She was close enough to hear it on the other side of the door. And she smiled gently when it cycled and opened for her, closing behind her after she went inside.

“Jack,” he said, out of sight around the corner. “I hoped you would come.”

“In a Biblical sense or...?” she started as she strode around the corner of the room to see him on his cot. The sight of him stopped her midway through her ribald response. He looked...pale. “Are you all right?”

“I am better for seeing you.”

“Cut the shit.”

He tilted his head, braced on his elbows, the expanse of naked green skin gleaming in the bright lights. Her mouth went a little dry even as concern made her heart stutter. It was just concern, wasn't it? Not some deeper, more complicated, more _unwanted_ , emotion?

“Come here, Jack.” Unvoiced in his command was the desire for her to be like him and she smirked as she stripped, leaving her clothes in a heap at the foot of the cot before she slid in against him. He'd pulled the sheet back to make room for her, shuffling to the side so she could nestle into his warmth. His arms came around her, holding her to his chest where her head lay supported in the hollow between shoulder and pectoral muscle.

“Are you really all right?” she whispered, her hand resting on his heartbeat. It was too fast for resting.

“I am still alive,” he said, evading slightly. She let him get away with it. He was moving against her, shifting their legs around so one of hers slipped between his at the knee. Static sparked between them, but faintly, his exhaustion having worn down his biotic ability to nothing more than an imitation of his usual strength. Ozone still permeated the air between them, however – what little air there was.

She lifted her head to look at him, seeing warmth in his eyes, a smile on his lips. With a nudge of his hands he invited her to straddle him, and she did, keeping the sheet across her shoulders to hold their heat in like a miser. She settled on him, felt him rising up beneath her, his hands stroking her skin with gentleness she'd forgotten existed outside of this room. She leaned over him to kiss him, and his hands glided down her back to her hips, down lower to her ass, spreading her open and tilting his now insistent erection into her heat. It was so simple and easy, she marveled. How well they fit, how ready she was with just a few touches and a single kiss. He hummed a note under his breath, sending a shudder down the length of her spine at the _satisfaction_ in that sound.

“Thane, you're really not in any shape for this,” she chided, grinding herself fully onto his cock, helpless to stop.

“I disagree,” he countered with a slow upward thrust that made her gasp. “I am fully capable of this.”

“That's not...”

“Hush now. I want you. I want this.”

It was all the reassurance she needed to make the selfish decision to keep going. She rode him until she came, so hard it was blinding. And still he moved in her slow and sure, hard and fast, changing the pace but never the depth, never the feeling of being rooted to the spot, centered like she'd never felt before. Sometimes she leaned over him, their mouths trading air and spice and spit. Sometimes she sat back on her heels, driving him so deep they both groaned at it, her body grasping at him as their hands held tight to each other, an anchor into reality. She lost count of how many times she climaxed, didn't bother to pay attention to anything but the sensation.

She was sweaty and her legs were tiring, a burning strain in her thighs, a tight ache in her knees. But she was determined to see his eyes glaze over, to feel him fill her up like a vessel made just for his adoration. His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place while he fucked her senseless. On a sharp outcry he stilled, pulsing inside her, burning hot and slippery. Only then did she stop, dropping half across him to straighten out her legs as he withdrew from her body. She saw patterns in his scales as she came down from the high, reveled in their commingled scent that now filled the small room. His breath was wheezing in his lungs, she could hear it with her ear pressed to him. All her earlier concern flooded back and she made to move off him, but he stopped her.

“Stay,” he said.

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“You aren't. Stay,” this time a whisper, a barely there entreaty. She nodded without speaking and nestled half across him like a careful blanket. He traced his fingernails across her back, soothing circles and designs that followed the muscles and bones he could feel under her skin. She closed her eyes, wanting to ask what happened now, where did they go from here? But there was no point in saying the words out loud. It wasn't like they could make promises. Plans.

Eventually she slept.


	15. If Wishes Were Fishes, I'd Still Be Drowning

New Mexico was pleasingly hot and arid. Thane stood beneath the yellow blaze of Earth's primary and soaked up the heat into his scales. Kolyat stood beside him, doing the same. Neither knew what their homeworld was like now, both of them had been born on Kahje. But this, this instinctual appreciation for the radiance, for the scouring grit in the air, the desert atmosphere so thin and dry, made them both wonder at what they'd lost as a species.

Thane wished Jack was there to see it, to see him.

“Father, what is she like, this woman you love?”

Thane cocked a brow at his son, wondering if telepathy was suddenly a skill his race had learned. Kolyat was watching him, chin in hand.

“She is...remarkable,” Thane said. “Sundered but not broken. Honed to a keen edge and wielded with chaos. But there is a depth to her I had not known I would find. She sought to bare the worst of herself to the world, but I always saw through it, to the beautiful soul within. Why do you ask?”

“You miss her.”

“I do,” he acknowledged. There wasn't much time left for him, he knew this. Kolyat knew it too. They were as yet a pair of strangers, bound only by a few memories. And those were seen from vastly different perspectives, leaving no solid middle ground upon which to build a foundation. These days together in this colorful, delightful desert on Earth made them wish for more time, made them mourn for the years that had passed and the strange, separate paths their lives had taken. Thane had many regrets he would take across the sea with him. Kolyat did not sully their short hours with blame. It was meaningless now. But that did not stop him from blaming himself.

“Would she have liked it here?” Kolyat wondered, gesturing to the expanse of sharp dips and deceptive curves of the landscape. In the distance, a shimmer of white could be seen at the edge of the attraction they'd come to see, a crowd of people doing the same, far enough from where they stood that they were mere dots in the hazy mirage of light.

“I do not rightly know. Jack is...” he smiled, trying to see her in the desert in his mind's eye. Wilting in the sun and heat, her skin turning bright red from the brilliance of it. Frowning and cursing at the lack of places to hide. “Jack is more a creature of the shadows than one of the light. She prefers darkness. It is defensible and secret.”

“For what it's worth, Father, I'm happy you found someone to share your final days with.”

“I have you,” Thane pointed out.

“You know what I mean.”

He smiled again, this time at his son, and the offhand way he deflected from their troubles. Nothing was perfect, the universe was still too dark a place for that. But for all that he regretted and did not speak of, they had managed to forge some ties, mend some wrongs. He wished it was as simple as saying he was sorry for not being there, for disappearing into his body to sleep while his son was formative and needed him. Still, there was hope for Kolyat to escape the past as best he could before the Reapers came. Thane believed the Commander; they were coming. Months of silence did not mean they had given up, that they weren't still waiting their entrance, plotting and finalizing.

“You have gone off into your own thoughts again.”

“Forgive me, my mind easily wanders these days.”

“It's all right, Father.” Kolyat reached out and took Thane's hand. “I just wish there was more time.”

“As do I.” He tipped his head back to feel the sun on it and closed his eyes, seeing Jack's face as they left the Normandy the last time. There were tears in her eyes and a stubborn quiver in her lips that she'd suppressed by biting them. The crowds around them at the Citadel faded away, even in his perfect recall of the moment. All he could see was her.

_“Promise me you'll keep me in the loop, Thane,” she demanded. “Promise me you won't forget.”_

_“I won't ever forget,” he replied, and kissed her there where everyone could see. A final trade of breath and heat, hovering with words unspoken yet heard._

He began composing a message to her in his head, there in the desert, sorting and choosing the words to send to her via omni-tool to tell her of the glory of the sun, the heat, the dry, the balance of love he felt for all living things but especially for her.

“Siha...” he whispered, the ache of missing her suddenly swamping his other sensations. He opened his eyes to see Kolyat had moved off, giving him space and isolation for his private grief. _Enough_ , he told himself sternly. _Enjoy these moments with Kolyat. They will never come again. Make the memories for him meaningful_.

“Shall we go see this marvel of white sand?” he called to his son, waving a hand toward the distant crowd at the edge of the plain.

Kolyat smiled and nodded, no words necessary. They walked across the desert, two drell out of place, but entirely at home.


	16. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Fucking Cerberus threatening her kids. They deserved better than what Cerberus would do to them. Especially now, with Reapers everywhere. She would kill all those fuckers before she'd let them take her students.

They'd shut down the facility as best they could, holed up in the most defensible position in Orion Hall, but it was going to be a battle of attrition. Sure, it was defensible, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Only a matter of time. And once again, the Alliance had fallen short. Didn't surprise her at this point. No wonder Shepard hadn't tried harder to get back to them once she was resurrected by terrorists. The Commander had gotten to do things her own way for a while. It must have felt wonderfully liberating.

“There's another wave coming,” Tosica said, fear in her voice.

“Godda...bless it,” she amended, seeing their faces light up with anticipation of hearing her swear. She tried, she really did, to at least act like she was a responsible adult around them. It was weird, but she found she actually kind of liked it. These kids looked up to her, respected her. She owed them in return to be worthy of it. That much she could do. “Get ready.”

Jack heard gunfire from the other side of the doors, _return_ fire. Someone had come, at last. She breathed a sigh of relief, not really caring if it was the Alliance or mercs. “Hold up, guys, this party just got bigger.”

“You think they're a rescue team?” Rodriguez asked, hope warring with exhaustion.

“I dunno. Keep some strength in reserve, let the newbies pick'em off for us. Get a snack or something.”

The doors on either side of Orion Hall opened up, spilling the Cerberus unit in the courtyard. Jack cut off another curse and ran down the stairs to fight them off. Her kids were beat, their amps overheating. They weren't prepared for this. An Atlas power suit stumped into view and she sneered. She'd protect her kids until her dying breath. If this was it, she had no regrets.

 _Thane_...

Okay, she had one regret.

She let her biotics flow through her, making her glow, ready to engage the Atlas. Someone fired from across the Hall, distracting the operator of the mechanical suit away from her. Another Atlas stumped in, flanked by a very familiar spiky crest and a beefy guy with ink flowing up his neck. Jack raised an eyebrow, impressed at the entrance.

“I see the Queen of the Girl Scouts still has excellent timing!” she shouted. She thought she heard a laugh from Garrus and the other guy grinned, showing off pearly whites in a tanned face as he hefted a serious looking assault rifle. She liked him already. She backed off from the fight, letting Shepard take on the Cerberus troops. “This is above your skills, kids,” she called to her class. “Get back upstairs, let the professionals deal with it.”

As she expected, the fight didn't last long. Shepard and Garrus still made the best battle couple in the universe, not that she'd ever say it out loud. The Commander hopped out of the Atlas when it was over and Jack vaulted biotically over the railing where her students rested, landing lightly on her feet. The new guy looked wary but intrigued. “Shepard.”

“Jack,” Shepard replied, surprised. “Didn't think I'd find _you_ here.”

She smirked. “The Alliance knew I'd worked with you, gave me a call after the Collector Base. Figured I had to do something to kill time while you were off playing hero.”

Something dark passed through the Commander's eyes before she looked up over her shoulder, seeing the kids gathered along the railing, watching them. “These are your students?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“Looks like it was a good way to kill time,” Shepard said warmly, her pride and affection clear. Jack let the sneer turn into a real smile.

“Now we just gotta get them outta here before more Cerberus shows up. Dammit, Shepard, I won't let those ass...jerks have my kids.”

“I'm working on it.” Shepard assured her and stepped aside, talking into her comms. Jack took the opportunity to look Garrus over.

“Hey, bird-boy.”

“Jack. Always a pleasure. I like the new hair.” She snorted and ran her hand over her short ponytail, and saw his mandibles drop as he grinned. “James, this is Jack, our _other_ psychotic biotic. Jack, James Vega. He joined Jayne after her time on Earth.”

Jack raised her eyebrow again at his turn of phrase. She hadn't slacked on keeping herself informed just because she was legit now. She figured she knew what that dark look had been in Shepard's eyes. “You mean he was her guard during her house arrest.”

“Something like that,” Vega agreed, all homegrown, corn fed surfer dude in his voice. She just stared at him until it fled from his face. She smirked again, dominance acquired.

“All right,” Shepard said, returning from her conference on the comms. “The cruiser came back, but Sanders found us another way out. Get your students fed and watered,” they shared a knowing grin, “and we'll get to work. I want them to keep behind us, let us take on the troops. They must be exhausted.”

“Yeah, they are. But they'll keep up,” she shot upwards over her shoulder.

“Damn straight we will,” Prangley called back.

“Watch your mouth.” Garrus huffed and Shepard snorted. She gave them both a reproving frown, knowing she totally fucked it by grinning. “We'll be ready in five.”

“Good enough.”

She had to admit, it was good to be back fighting alongside Shepard and Garrus. They made it out, all of them, although it was a close call. Shepard wanted them in a support role going forward, and while she wanted to spout off that her kids were ready for frontline action, she knew they weren't. Support would play to their strengths, and keep them out of the direct line of fire. At least, hopefully.

“When we get back to the Citadel, I want you to come with me to the hospital,” Shepard said softly as they docked with the Normandy.

“Why?”

“There's someone there you need to see.”

Jack grabbed the Commander's arm, her fingers cramping with how tight she held on. Shepard didn't seem to notice. “Thane?”

“Yes.”

“Is he...?”

“He's holding his own. But it will be good for him to see you.” There was compassion there in the Commander's eyes, compassion she both wanted and hated. “Jack...it won't be long now. I'm sorry.”

“Fuck off, Shepard.” It came out automatically, and for a second she regretted it, but she saw the sadness temper in Shepard's expression, replaced with something more familiar and wry. She shook her head, the closest she could bring herself to an apology and stepped back, releasing her grip.

“He's quieter now, weaker. He's had some bad attacks, faintness. But he's good. He's...he's Thane,” Shepard finished simply.

Jack nodded, knowing what she meant. “I'll be ready to go as soon as they're all settled.”

“I'll wait for you.”


	17. **Reunions Like This Only Happen In the Vids

He'd positioned himself just inside the door to Ashley's room, keeping an eye on her as she slept. He knew the prolonged coma worried the Commander, but he also knew the body needed to shut down in order to heal. Her wounds had been extensive and severe, the head trauma not the least of it. He was confident the Marine would survive. From everything he'd heard of her – aside from Jack's single scathing review – she had a lot to fight and live for.

The door opened and he jumped to alertness from his semi-somnolent meditation stance. Shepard walked in, the knowing smile on her lips seen an instant before he saw _her_.

“Thane!” Jack cried, burrowing against him. He wrapped his arms around her, hardly daring to believe she was really here. It had been too much to hope in such a hopeless universe that she'd return to him. He relaxed as they embraced and he breathed again, inhaling the scent of her. Ozone, linen and leather. She raised her head and smiled at him, her brown eyes warm. “Hey.”

“Hello, Jack.” She reached up to cup the back of his head, drawing her in for a kiss so sweet it hurt. When the separated, the Commander was watching them.

“Go on, I'll sit with Ash awhile. Take your time.” Her smile turned mischievous and Jack returned it. He tugged her hand and led her away from the room.

There was little privacy in the busy hospital, but he still had his own quarters as a permanent resident. He locked the cycling door and let Jack look around as he took a seat in a softly cushioned chair. He watched her move from spot to spot, looking at the few mementos he'd gathered and placed on shelves and windowsill. There was a holo print of him and Kolyat framed by the Grand Canyon that she stopped and held, her face taking on a soft aspect he'd never seen on her before.

“Your son?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I didn't know he was grown. Just how old are you?”

“Forty six.” He tilted his head as he watched her. She seemed surprised. Or perhaps _shocked_ was a better description. He'd wondered when the age difference was going to become apparent to her. She seemed so young compared to him, although he knew she was not. In pure years, she was older than Shepard. But many of them had been spent in cryogenic stasis, and she had not aged. It was hard to know just how old Jack saw herself. She had known of him when he still worked for the hanar, and that ended a decade ago. She'd already made her escape from Cerberus by then, had already started to make a name for herself as an underworld criminal, and he knew that she was not exactly a child when that happened.

She traced a finger along the lines of the holo print, following the edge of his jaw. She put it back and turned to him, crossing the small room and settling herself across his lap. His hands automatically smoothed over her thighs where they straddled him, feeling the hard muscle and tension she held there. Her fingers trailed across his actual jaw now, almost as if she was hunting for differences between the image and the reality. The same soft expression from before flitted across her face when she caught sight of him watching her. She looked good. Her hair had grown out on top, long enough after their months apart to be tied back. Her face was smoother, less angry at everything. The static still crackled between them, biotic to biotic.

“I've missed you,” he said.

“Yeah? Which parts?” She wiggled on him, a small laugh burbling in her throat. He shifted his hands from her thighs to her hips.

“All of them.” He leaned up to capture her lips, feeling the vibration of her muffled moan. The kiss started gentle and sweet, but turned sharp in an instant when his teeth caught her bottom lip to tug and entreat. Her arms clung around his neck, one hand splayed across the ridges of his head crest.

“I missed you too,” she whispered when he drew back, winded already. He felt the desire for her thrum in his pulse, but it had the penalty of making him lightheaded from lack of oxygen.

“I am not the man I was,” he warned. “Kepral's is not kind...”

“Shh. Don't tell me all the shitty details. I don't want to think about it.” She leaned her cheek against his brow, her fingers brushing against his facial ridges, already flushed and warm. “You once told me to stay in the moment. I want to do that. I'm not ready to think about...the inevitable.”

“Oh, _siha_...” he breathed, and her grip tightened on him for a moment. He had told her about that, told her that he was a lucky man for having known so many. Irikah, Shepard...and her. “I love you.”

She made a sound, choked off and hard. A sob she held back as if sheer will could keep death at bay. If anyone could do it, it would be Jack. A hot splash hit his face and he closed his eyes, knowing she wouldn't want him to see her cry. “I love you, too. Goddammit.”

He almost didn't hear it, she whispered so softly. If these were to be their final days, he wanted to make them last. Make them count. Leave her with something to remember more than just his wheezing gasps and weakness. His hands seem to move of their own volition, tugging at straps and buckles and sleeves, baring her skin to his touch and gaze. She was quiet and more still than he'd ever known her to be, watching him strip her naked. She looked...vulnerable.

They didn't move from the chair, merely took solace and comfort and pleasure there. She had finally moved to unbutton his shirt, his pants, drawing him up into her hands, enticing his flesh to harden and strain in her fingers. When she sank onto him it was with a sigh. Contentment, perhaps. Relief. _Love_.

He touched her everywhere he could reach, sipping kisses at throat and collarbones and breasts as she leaned back to accommodate him. She lifted herself and fell, long languorous strokes that didn't push any boundaries other than the ones of urgency. He blocked out regret and focused on her, dug his fingers into her skin, marking her with his nails as surely as she had marked his soul. She shuddered in his arms, her rush towards release soft and quiet, but stunningly powerful. Her biotic field surrounded them, making him feel weightless, buzzing along every nerve. It sent him over the edge of his own climax, surging into her with a strength his body hadn't forgotten. She held him tight even as he slipped from her heat, rapidly chilling now that his passion was spent.

They stayed that way for a long time, long after the shadows of the artificial day cycle had moved, leaving them in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get your tissues ready. The end is nigh.


	18. I Will See You Again, Across the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *puts out box of tissues* I'm just going to leave this here.

Jack could heard Shepard and Kolyat murmuring outside. It burned in her, rage and sorrow mingled so tightly she could barely breathe. Thane turned his head to her, his face pale and bloodless.

“ _Siha_ , I'm afraid I've picked a bad time to leave.”

“Don't...” she choked out.

“Jack...”

“I don't want you to die,” she admitted. “Dammit.” She fumbled for his hand and gripped it, unable to ignore how weakly he returned the pressure. “Fuck this,” she snarled, forbidden tears dropping from her lashes no matter how hard she tried not to let them fall. She swiped them away with her free hand, so much anger boiling over that she felt sick with it. “Why did you do it? Huh? Why step in front of a blade for her?”

He didn't speak, the air rattling in his lungs in the silence of the room speaking too loud already. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Yeah, I get it. I would have too.”

Funny how much people had come to mean to her in the last year. First Shepard, all unwillingly, treating her like a treasured thing, a sister in more than just arms. Then him, with his fucking deadly attractiveness and equally attractive spirit. She couldn't forgive him for making her love him. Couldn't forgive him for dying this way. But she knew, if their roles had been reversed, she would have done the same. No one else could stop the damned Reapers. It had to be the Commander. And that meant they would have to sacrifice to keep her alive long enough to do it.

He tried to say something, his weak breath caught wrong and he started to cough. The rattle grew louder, no longer a whisper but a scream in her head and she fought back panic that it would be over before they said anything like a proper goodbye. “Stay with me, now! You have to stay...”

Even she could hear the wobble in her directive, the wet sound of her barely restrained grief.

“Jack...” he gasped out. “I will always be with you.” He lifted his hand and pressed it against her heart. “Here.”

“Damn you,” she cursed as she ducked her head and felt another tear drop off her face. She watched it land on his hand where it still rested against her. She put hers over it, wrapping her fingers around it and he squeezed. The door opened and the other two came in. Shepard's hand hovered for a second before it landed on her shoulder. She knew she was supposed to take strength from that offer of comfort, but right now she wanted to kick them all out, wanted to turn back time and rip Kai Leng apart with her bare hands, limb by limb.

Thane saw it in her eyes, his own blinking quickly. He smiled gently to see Shepard standing behind her and she couldn't control the tears anymore, letting them fall with abandon. “My _siha_...” he whispered. “There is something I must do.”

“Don't waste your air,” she managed to reply. He gazed at her for a long moment, and smiled. It was the kind that said 'don't worry, I'll be fine, I'll see you again'.

He turned his head away from her, facing the ceiling and his gods that he had forever prayed to. “Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness. Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand...”

He began to cough again, and Jack closed her eyes, as if that would block out the sound of the rattle. Kolyat spoke up, continuing his father's prayer in a deep gravelly voice that brushed against her in the same way that Thane's did.

“Kalahira, wash the sins from this one and set him on the distant shore of the infinite spirit.”

Thane turned to his son, pride and a fierce sort of joy in his eyes. Jack looked between them, seeing little resemblance physically, but their presence identical. “Kolyat, you speak as the priests do,” he gasped. “You have been spending time with them.”

Kolyat nodded, then came around the side of the bed to where Shepard and Jack were. “Commander, Jack, I brought a prayer book. Would you care to join me?”

“Of course,” Shepard said, taking the book from his hands. “Kalahira, this one's heart is pure, but beset by wickedness and contention.” She stopped and stooped down to put the prayer book where Jack could see it. She pointed to where she'd left off. Jack took a deep breath.

“Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover...the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve. Guide this one, Kalahira, and she will be a companion to you...as she was to me.”

Thane smiled, his eyes closed as she read, his grasp weakening on hers. His chest rose a final time, then stopped. A sound of denial escaped her before she could stop it and she felt Shepard's hand on her shoulder, painfully tight.

“Kolyat,” Shepard asked. “Why did the last verse say 'she'?”

“The prayer was not for him. He had already asked forgiveness for the lives he had taken. His wish was for you. And for Jack.”

She gave in then, letting out the sobs she'd tried so hard to fight, to hold back while breath still moved in his body. She couldn't bear to have him hear it, to have his final moments be the sounds of her anguish. She bent over his hand, still in hers, still warm. She didn't care that the Commander and Kolyat still stood by, didn't care that the Reapers were here, ravaging all their worlds, didn't care about anything but the sucking black wound where her heart had been. Even with his last breath, he'd been giving of himself to them, to her. It hurt beyond bearing.

Shepard let her go then, and stepped up to the head of the bed, the whisper of her fingers on his scales sounding too loud in the room. “Goodbye, Thane. We'll meet you across the sea.”

Jack stood then, letting him go to face his son. Kolyat's eyes were wet and his stillness was so like his father's it sent a fresh bolt of pain into her. He seemed to know it, and shifted so that his stance was more open. More his own.

“I'm glad you were here, Kolyat, I know how much it meant to him to mend your...differences,” she said, gathering what little dignity around her as she could. “Thank you for letting us be here too.”

“Of course,” he replied. “My father spoke often of you. His memories will live on with me. Someday...they will be good.”

 _Someday_ , she echoed in her head, stumbling away from them both. _But not today_.


	19. Epilogue - The Scouring Sand of Time

The colony had grown since the last time she saw it. She walked on slow feet, the sun beating on her head with warmth and she rolled her shoulders under it, letting it cleanse her of the last few weeks of chaos in the continuing aftermath. She'd heard from Shepard and Garrus, happily on their way to Palaven at last, the bulk of the turian refugees with them. Grunt had sent her a message too, full of capslock and typos, but happy and healthy. He sent greetings from Wrex and Bakara, along with a holo of their two tiny daughters. She still couldn't believe Wrex had gone through with it and named the elder Mordin. Funnier yet - although no surprise to Jack - was that the younger was named Shepard. She'd even heard from Miranda, now working closely with Liara to track down the last remnants of Cerberus. That was...weird. Thane would have enjoyed the irony of it.

This visit was her final stop before she too left the planet on her way to pick up the last of her students. Hackett was letting her borrow the Normandy, with Joker and EDI at the helm, to make the run. Their location was deep in the Attican Traverse and the batarians had never forgiven Shepard, or any humans for that matter, for her crime, even if it had saved the rest of the galaxy. It would be good to see the ship again. Maybe she'd convince Joker to swing by Palaven on the way back, surprise the Commander – _the_ _Ambassador_ , she mentally corrected with a snort – before they came back to Earth.

Two brightly colored children, their heads still covered in frills, not yet firmed into crests, raced past her, interrupting her reverie. Their facial ridges were striped in orange and blue. They stopped to wave at the human in their midst. She waved back, smiling. And they raced off again, their shrieks of laughter freeing something deep inside her that she thought frozen forever. She continued on her way into the colony.

Kolyat stepped out from the smooth adobe style house he lived in, his smile of greeting warm and open. They embraced briefly, each of them knowing too well how it affected her. He was so very like his father, and that pain hadn't diminished even though a year had passed. Kolyat held her hand, looking at the back of it. A small tattoo of a green hand, conjoined middle fingers balancing a heart, had been added there. He smiled sadly. The moment was interrupted as a petite, pretty drell stepped out from the small home behind him, her greeting a bit more shy and reserved, but just as warm as Kolyat's had been.

“Hey, Akeme,” Jack said. “How are you feeling?”

Akeme passed a hand over the bump of her belly, her blue tinged scales shining in the bright New Mexico sun. “I am well today.”

“That's good.”

“Are you off again?” Kolyat asked.

“Yeah. I got Grissom kids to wrangle.”

He nodded, fully aware that she cared as much about her former students as she cared about all of them. “We will hold you in our memories until you return.”

She cocked a grin at him, disguising just how much that sentiment meant to her. He knew, he was far wiser than he'd been two years ago. “Just thought I'd stop by and make the rounds before I go, ya know?”

“There will always be a place for you here, Jack. You saved us.”

She waved it off, mildly embarrassed by their gratitude. Really, she'd just been in the right place at the right time. When Kahje fell to the Reapers, she'd talked to Shepard to see if they could work out a way to evacuate as many drell as possible that were free of indoctrination. And bring them here, to New Mexico, the place Thane had loved so much in the short time he'd been here. Hundreds of refugees had moved into the colony since the end of the war. Now it spread as far as Arizona, side by side with the native folk of the region. She knew there were just as many drell in the Sahara as well. None of it would have been possible without Liara, of course, and her resources as the Shadow Broker. But, she supposed, when it came down it, it had been her own idea.

“I had to keep the universe brighter,” she said softly, with a shrug. No big thing, right, saving what was left of his people. Kolyat pressed his hand into the one of hers with the new ink, then stepped back, wrapping an arm around Akeme. “Hey, when I get back, I better get a chance to hold that baby.”

“You will,” Akeme said firmly. “He would not be coming if not for you.”

The drell woman gazed at Kolyat, the love and happiness shining pure on her face. It pinched, but did not ache. It was good to see the future well underway for them. Thane would have been so proud. So content.

Jack would just have to do it for him, she decided. She could do that. She could tell his grandchild tales of his heroism, and of his humility. Of his devotion.

“I'll see you around, Kolyat.”

“Kalahira guide your steps, _siha'thae_.”

“And yours.”

She turned and gave the colony a last, long look. Maybe once this was all over, she could finally settle down. Maybe once she was done fetching and carrying refugees and the displaced, she could pick up what remained of her life. Start over. There was a whole lot of galaxy to reconstruct. It would be good to get her hands dirty building something instead of tearing it down. There would be a growing child to shower with love and adoration.

She'd always liked the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akeme - Ah-kem-mee
> 
> siha'thae - 'aspect of a siha'
> 
> Many thanks for everyone who joined me on this side trip ship. 
> 
> Comments are the lifeblood of every writer, so let me know what you think. I answer each one.
> 
> Cheers, and happy Leap Day!


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